Rural Gets a Welcome Spotlight in National Housing Policy Report

By David R. Dangler, director, NeighborWorks Rural Initiative

The Bipartisan Center’s Housing Commission recently released Housing America’s Future:  New Directions for National Policy.  From the introduction we learn that the report is, “the culmination of a 16-month examination of some of the key issues in housing, provides a blueprint for an entirely new system of housing finance for both the ownership and rental markets.” 

The first wave of reactions to the report have naturally focused on the recommendations to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while re-affirming the importance of sustainable homeownership as integral to the American dream, to engage the private sector more broadly in housing finance, and to remember and include the lowest income renters when allocating increasingly scarce resources. For those working in rural housing, however, what jumped out for many of us was chapter five, “The Importance of Rural Housing."

The rural recommendations give a welcome affirmation to USDA Rural Development’s “primary responsibility” for housing rural Americans, noting “higher poverty rates and lower incomes” which add to rural housing’s affordability burdens. With all the public policy focus on consolidating federal housing programs, the commission’s clear language around keeping rural housing programs at USDA is especially welcome to many.

The report includes four rural policy recommendations: 

1.    Support and strengthen USDA’s role in rural housing.
2.    Extend the current definition of rural areas through the year 2020.
3.    Increase budget allocations to serve more households.
4.    Dedicate resources for capacity-building and technology to strengthen USDA providers

If implemented, these recommendations would dovetail neatly with NeighborWorks America’s own efforts in concert with other national intermediaries—HAC, Rural LISC and Habitat for Humanity—to strengthen the rural nonprofit service delivery system.

Starting well before the Great Recession, NeighborWorks America has consistently prioritized a national partnership between credentialed nonprofits and USDA Rural Development (RD). The thinking has been that there would be a variety of ways for an increasingly professional nonprofit infrastructure to fill in key customer service gaps that would open as RD decreased its field offices and personnel. For example, the packaging of 502 Direct loan applications for RD area offices is about to transition from a handful of pilots to a mainstreamed model for others to follow.

Given the unique interdependence of rural-serving nonprofits and USDA Rural Development, chapter five brings a welcome focus to the issue of rural housing, but as with so many blue ribbon reports, the real value will be in the degree to which the report's recommendations become policy. 

Working Together for Maximum Impact: NeighborWorks Rural Initiative

David Dangler,
NeighborWorks America,
director of Rural Initiatives

 The NeighborWorks Rural Initiative in 2012 is a far cry from the dozen or so rural groups who came together in the early days of the NeighborWorks network. Now there are 91 organizations participating in the Rural Initiative – and they include many of the network’s most productive members. In 2011, Rural Initiative members made direct investments into their combined communities of over $1.574 billion in 45 different states. When we drill down into the statistics, we find the Rural Initiative members are consistently in the top 25 producers in the NeighborWorks America network. This is supported by the data below, taken from a recent report on the NeighborWorks America Network entitled "It Takes a Network." All data is for 2011.

These high production figures become even more impressive when measured against the relative size and population density of many of the communities being served. For example, Wyoming Housing Network (WHN) runs a statewide program which created more new homebuyers in 2011 than any other NeighborWorks chartered network member. That in itself is impressive, but the story is larger than that. For many of the rural communities WHN served, their new homebuyers represented a significant percent of the total market activity. To illustrate, let’s use a purely fictional town we’ll call Antelope Falls, Wyoming which represents real towns I’ve seen throughout our rural network. There may have been only 10 total first time homebuyers in Antelope Falls in 2011, and of that 6 people were buyers educated by WHN – meaning WHN’s work affected 60% of the total market. In many urban environments the total number of homebuyers educated might be larger, but the percentage impact on the market is often smaller.

Another key element of the Rural Initiative network’s success has been collaboration across markets and lines of business. For example, we’ve been working closely with CFED and the  Ford Foundation to create asset-building opportunities with factory built housing in rural and urban environments.  These efforts have supported two of the most innovative and impactful social enterprises in the community development field ROC USA and Next Step. ROC USA helps residents purchase their manufactured home parks from absentee owners, and Next Step helps to replace substandard manufactured homes with Energy Star rated factory built homes. To succeed, both ROC USA and Next Step rely upon the NeighborWorks network for key lines of business – community building and organizing, home ownership education and training, rental property development and management and affordable lending.

Members of the NeighborWorks Rural Initiative, Rural LISC
and RCAC at the June conference in Visalia, California

Another key program component, which our partners have come to rely upon, is the rigor of the NeighborWorks standards for evaluating lines of business and organizational health.  Our member organizations are assessed regularly and measured against their peers and industry standards.  In addition, NeighborWorks Rural Initiative members share best practices with one another at events like this year’s June rural conference in Visalia, California. At this event, we not only collaborated within our own network, but also with two other major rural networks – Rural LISC and the Rural Communities Assistance Corporation (RCAC).

Looking ahead, we’re excited about expanding our asset-building strategies to include rural rental housing and a range of green applications that will be good for both built and natural environments. I’ll be writing more about these efforts in future blogs so stay tuned. You can subscribe by entering your email in the right side of this page.